Benefits for you and your department

• Short URLs (fit in an email without wrapping and breaking, easy to write or type if needed, works better in print)
• No ‘%20’ text in your URL (occurs in the browser when spaces are used)
• Easier for you to manage your site as you can quickly identify file names
• If you include spaces in file and folder names the link may not work for some people accessing your site

Use lower case letters and hyphens

• File names and folders are case sensitive. They should be in lowercase for easier readability and to ensure they work on all systems
• File names and folder names should have no spaces between words. Spaces between words and letter display as %20 in browsers. Instead, use ‘-‘ (hyphen). To make a hyphen press the minus key on your keyboard
• Do not use any special characters such as %, ! or ?

Date formatted file names

• For file names with dates, use the format YYYYMMDD.html, for example, 20170611 for 11 June 2017. This will list your files in chronological order and be easy to track and manage

Keep file and folder names short and simple

• Keep your names short, succinct and meaningful. The longer the filename, the longer the URL. Long URL’s are hard to read, type or write, and wrap and break when pasted into emails. They also look ugly and intimidating in print